


Failsafe

by cyfarwydd



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Stiles, Developing Relationship, Elemental Magic, M/M, Magic, Nature Magic, Shamanism, magical!Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:58:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyfarwydd/pseuds/cyfarwydd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles hadn't really planned for this. Neither had Derek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you're married to the strict definition of Shamanism, this might not be the best read for you. I had an idea and just sort of ran with it- think Willow from Buffy meeting Blair from The Sentinel. So quite a few liberties are taken with the practice. 
> 
> This chapter is all Stiles and catching you up to speed, Derek will come into the story next. Un-betaed because I'm impulsive. And there needs to be infinitely more BAMF!Stiles out there.

So Stiles hadn’t exactly planned it like this okay? Sure, he had thought that maybe he’d learn some neat tricks, a few gimmicks and some manipulation. Learn how to handle the strange ingredients that seemed to have an effect on the things that went bump in the night.

This though? This was like, Buffy shit right here.

It started in belief, Deaton hadn’t been wrong about that, but belief could only do so much, extending a mountain ash line, mixing cures and curses.

The heavy stuff? Latin, archaic, rhyming chants whispered under the breath, blood spilled, sigils carved into bones and things so creepy he feverishly hoped that his Dad never bothered to dig deeper into his regularly erased search history. Words held the power here.

Stiles had always been good at words.

Hell, he was Willow, he was a fucking goddess. Or you know, whatever.

He had only been training for a year, his seventeenth birthday not even a month past, and he could feel the difference, feel it in his bones- his energy, his core. His mother had always been sort of heavy into that. As practical his dad was, his mom had swung in a whole different direction. He remembered chakras, tantric chants, spiritual vision quests, things his dad had never really bothered to learn, but Stiles had soaked up with all the enthusiasm of a kid who knew that this might be the last time he’d get to hear her voice, feel her presence.

Even though he’d let those practices fade away, as sure as the scent of her was disappearing from the house, he guessed the roots had grown in a bit too deep to rip out.

Not that it mattered much, but it gave him an extra boost, and an increased affinity that was solid enough that even Deaton couldn’t help but be surprised at the speed Stiles picked things up.

He was smart. He might not be the fastest, or the strongest, or even the most traditionally intelligent with Lydia in the group, but when he got something, he _got it._ And he never lost it.

It was coming majorly in handy in a trade where memorization and instinct was the name of the game. Deaton had been pressing that while there were standards, guidelines to follow, most of the magic cast was cobbled together, the power and effectiveness of it dependent on the knowledge of the maker.

Stiles could do knowledge.

He still researched for Derek, and sometimes Scott, same as always, and turned in his assignments on time, or, well, the ones that interested him at least. Before he had gotten started on all this though, there was a significant portion of his days devoted to doing jack shit. Scott wasn’t there anymore to play video games on his off-time, too caught up in Allison and the ever-revolving drama of her family, not that Stiles could blame the dude, and he wasn’t that interested in picking up knitting.

So when Deaton had held him back after a routine visit to Scott in order to offer him the chance to learn something like this, something useful, but more importantly something that felt _right_ ; natural. Stiles had jumped at the chance.

Literally- who could blame him, because _magic_? That was the stuff out of movies and legends and those video games that Scott had always said were too girly to play but that he secretly pined over with hearts in his eyes.

Deaton had pressed that _magic_ wasn’t the right term, specifically; he had seemed to cringe at it a bit. Moving the Earth is what he liked to phrase it as, the Earth, the air, the elements, the energy around them. That was a little too wordy for Stiles tastes, so he mostly called it shifting.

Maybe Scott had been confused for a few days and okay, he still got caught off guard sometimes. But it was _Scott_. Stiles loved the guy, but vocabulary was never his strong suit.

Besides, he wasn’t about to let werewolves and their altered state ruin the totally awesome phrase that whispered magic, quicksilver in his mind every time he said it.

This was heady shit.

Even his dad, who still didn’t have a confirmed clue as to what he was doing, although Stiles knew that he definitely had an idea because c’mon, he was a good cop, had noticed. He was still Stiles, he was goofy, callous, would defend Lydia and Scott and his dad to the death, but he was also _more._

He didn’t doubt himself so much, for all that humbleness was important, and Deaton pushed awareness down his throat like nothing else. Power could be overwhelming, and now Stiles had power, more than he could’ve ever imagined.

At the start of last summer, he’d never thought that maybe Scott would be the weak one, or Derek. But they were, compared to him, and he was only growing stronger.

Physically he was the same, taller maybe, a bit thinner, though his dad had been trying to get him to eat more, and his personality was as sparkling as ever. There were new channels formed though, new associations and abilities that were cemented in his mind.

There weren’t many of them. Deaton called what they were, or more what Stiles was _becoming_ , a dying breed. There were witches, more of them than they could ever accurately count, and plenty of people who could do parlor tricks that amounted to what Stiles had done on that first night with the barrier of extended mountain ash.

Fuck, if Stiles had never learned anything more than that, _he_ would’ve thought that was pretty intense.

That was barely scratching the surface though. The surface of the surface. It hadn’t even reached the stratosphere.

Their numbers were few, because this power? It could get to people, it _did_ get to them. Whatever had made the supernatural a reality, be it science or something else, it had been smart. It created a failsafe.

You let the power go to your head, flow from you uncontrolled, and you would die, burned from the inside out.  A restored balance- you took too much from the Earth, and sometimes it would stop giving and decide to take back what you owed, with interest.

Deaton had made that clear to him before he had even started to learn anything, forced him to consider it for a month before he had even begun to teach Stiles the simplest chants. Stiles had thought about it too, he hadn’t ignored the hairy part of that slice of life, since the failure rate, yeah, that was enormously high.

He knew he could do it though, and he would, and he was. Past, present, and future, this was happening.

They weren’t witches, magicians, humans with a trick up their sleeves. Nothing was more powerful than the Earth itself, and those who learned to harness it.

They were shaman.


	2. Chapter 2

Scott was always complaining about his smell now whenever they were at school- he said it made him sneeze. That it was confusing, like the soil of the field and the wind drafting past pine needles, carrying the scent.

Well he’d actually said, “Dude! You smell like, _dirt._ And- and bark and stuff. It’s weird man.”

Stiles had imagination though, totally.

Plus he’d like to think that’s what Derek thought whenever he happened to pass through casa de la Stilinski; which was surprisingly often nowadays, only maybe not so much.

Stiles had started to sense things awhile ago, not a lot, but enough. Base emotions, mainly- electric on his skin.

Around others, Derek prickled, needles on his arms that were almost painful but not quite. He still wasn’t too sure what any of it meant, but Stiles thought it indicated major guilt issues, and you know, angst.

When it was just him and Stiles, it was calmer. Not gone, but more a caress than a stab. A pleasant warmth wrapping around him, making him shake, just a bit.

It made Stiles kind of giddy, a little smug. He annoyed people, he knew that, it wasn’t like it was a secret, and it wasn’t something he minded all that much either. It was who he was, loudmouthed and sarcastic, always had been. His mom had told him once that she had been like that- that it was hard but it was worth it, because the people who stuck around? You knew they were worth it.

Derek had stuck around.

Armed with an arsenal of insults and physical intimidation sure, but Stiles wasn’t worried. He could feel the fondness.

He was busy carving a rune into the east wall of his room, a small spot just behind his bed, when Derek entered the room, via the window like always, the stalker. He could sense him, in his own way, although there wasn’t any noise or tell-tale giveaway of his presence.

Stiles didn’t stop chipping away at the paint and plaster with a smell penknife, his breathing deep and steady. He could always break out of the trances he got into in order to channel his power pretty quickly, but he liked to be gradual about it if he could, and Derek wasn’t interrupting him so obviously whatever he had come here for could wait.

When he was finally done, what could’ve been minutes or hours later, he sighed, cracking his neck as he scooted away from the symbol and leaned back into the bed, closing his eyes as he went.

He heard a shift of leather, and the creaking of the bed as Derek sat down just above him, a displacement of air and heat. He still didn’t speak, but Stiles could dig that. He knew that he calmed the werewolf down- something about his energy, it was-

“Evolving.”

His voice was startling in the hush of the room. He could hear the scowl in Derek’s voice as he replied, “What are you talking about?”

 “I’m _evolving_.”

Derek sighed, and Stiles could hear how he sank his torso back onto the bed after a loud exhale.  Hah- Ex _Hale_.

“No, dude, seriously. I’m a motherfucking butterfly. I can so sting like a bee, you don’t even know man.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

Stiles hummed, opening his eyes just enough so that he could see a sliver of the room, the dust motes drifting in the sun, Derek’s denim clad leg resting just next to his shoulder, almost touching.

“Maybe I don’t have to.”

*

It turned out that Derek really did have a reason for showing up out of the blue- though not for anything urgent. He wanted Stiles to help with the house.

“You mean you’re finally changing the charred ruins of all your deepest and darkest despairs- really truly?”

“Stiles-“

“Got tired of waking up with bits of roof in that springy-quaff of yours?”

“ _Stiles-_ “

“It’s a good look, don’t get me wrong, but it really lends to the whole creepy serial killer vibe, I’m just saying-“

“Stiles!”

“You rang?”

He smirked as he saw Derek lock his jaw, fingers curling around his knee.

“I just need you to ward it. There are things that we can’t touch, _shouldn’t_ touch, that would help- protect us.”

Stiles hummed, “And the fact that I can clear out huge swathes of rubble in a single bound?”

“Irrelevant.”

“Oh totally.”

Liar.

Although maybe not completely, because Stiles really did have some kickass sigils that would help keep the big bad’s away.

It was tricky, but not incredibly difficult, figuring out what would only harm werewolves that weren’t under his protection. He couldn’t use _his_ emotions, because for all the warm fuzzies he had for Scott and okay, maybe, _sort of_ Derek, he really didn’t know Boyd, Issac, or Erica all that well, and let’s face it- he would never be able to trust Peter.

Sure, he could like them well enough, given the circumstances, like when they weren’t bashing his head in for instance, but Stiles wasn’t really the forgive and forget type. Scott had tried to kill him, and he had been ignoring and looking past him for the better part of a year and a half, but before that? Scott had his _back_ , he was there, thick or thin. They spent most of their lives together, and Stiles could accept a lot of bullshit for that kind of bond.

Even if it made him put itching powder in his underwear once in awhile when he got too mopey about Allison.

Derek had never pushed him about his _socializing_ , of all things, but Stiles got the feeling he wouldn’t mind Stiles becoming closer with his little rag-tag group of violent leather-clad teenagers.

The man’s decision making skills were _so_ not up to par.

The leather wasn’t that bad though- a little too Mad Max for his tastes.

He had this feeling that he’d be able to create a sort of bubble, around the property. Instead of trying to create a false bond, he just had to _shift_ the axis, tie it to Derek. It would work better in the long run since it was technically his territory, and the alpha had major trust issues.

Stiles knew that Derek trusted him with other things, and that was enough.

Symbols had a lot of power, and that nifty little tattoo on Derek’s back held a lot of sway with who he was at the core, and it should be enough to be a foundation.

After another minute appreciating the silence, and that is not something he ever would’ve thought he would say, especially around Derek, he sighed, scrambling up off the floor and dragging the chair away from his desk.

He pulled out his Economics notebook and vindictively erased the page of notes- take _that_ Finstock. Pencil poised over the paper, he looked expectantly at Derek, still half-laying on his bed, head turned to track Stiles’ movement.

“ _What?_ ”

“Take off your shirt and turn around.” Derek stared at him, in a way that would be unnerving if Stiles didn’t know that was just his normal expression.

“Please.”

In the blink of an eye, Derek was sitting up, twisting his body and bringing his legs up off the floor and crossing them at the ankle as he turned his back to Stiles. He shrugged out of his jacket and pulled his shirt off in a smooth motion, tossing both items to the floor.

Stiles licked his lips, refrained from gulping because yeah, _muscles,_ shifting distractingly as he set his shoulders in a rigid line. This had to be hard for him, even though he knew Stiles was so far from an enemy, being submissive like this.

He tried not to take it for granted, quickly sketching out the design so he had the curves of it just right, jotting down notes on the placement and size. When he was done he set everything on the desk, bracing himself.

“Okay- uh, dude, I’m gonna have to come up behind you and look more closely, and probably touch it, alright? So, good doggy.”

There was that growl they all knew and loved.

Stiles took a moment to wipe his palms on his jeans, steadying himself before he walked across the room and perched directly behind the werewolf. He did his best to send out calm vibes, thinking of the trees, the forest, the way his mom used to smile in the sun whenever they took trips down to the beach- the slight sting of salt in the air.

He could tell it was working, because suddenly the sharp pain at the edge of his senses faded away, lulled into a steady beat against his skin, and the broad shoulders in front of him slumped.

“Right- touching now.”

He brought up his hand, slowly reaching forward until the tips of his fingers just brushed against the black ink.

He’d never admit to anyone that he took a moment just to stare at the contrast between his and Derek’s skin- his hand shockingly tan against the pale of Derek’s back.

But this was business, totally business, even if Derek could probably smell the spike in hormones that Stiles was emitting.

As he started absent mindedly tracing the triskele, committing it to muscle memory so he could later replicate it in the static of the woods, he thought about how it was sort of odd, but not really, that Derek had never mentioned it.

Stiles was a pretty centered guy- he had to be nowadays, and he had always held an awareness for his own emotions. He had felt that sharp pulse of _something_ when he saw Lydia Martin walk into class on the first day of third grade, her strawberry blonde head held high. It was something that hadn’t faded at all in the past eight years, just changed.

What he felt for Derek wasn’t as sudden, but it was just as deep.

It had been gradual, so, _so_ gradual; glacial even. Hell, when he had first started his training he had still semi-hated the guy for all that he’d done.

Strongly disliked. He could sure fill out a shirt though.

So the attraction wasn’t new, that steady undercurrent of want, but Stiles wanted a lot of people, he still did- that’s not what counted with him. He could see Jackson and wonder idly what it’d be like to touch his perfectly formed jaw, or even think back to the curious unevenness that was Scott’s face, a composition that still managed to be startlingly attractive. Lydia would always be on his radar in that sense, and it was understandable for Scott to be struck dumb by his lust for Allison.

It was most definitely a good thing that his best friend understood him, understood him on a level that when he could literally smell the desire coming off of Stiles around his girlfriend, he knew that it wasn’t anything he controlled. It was just Stiles, perpetually horny, but mostly just appreciative. 

No- want didn’t really count for anything; sure it was nice to see a good physique, but the mind, that was what Stiles was drawn to. The paradoxes.

Which Derek had a lot of, something people might not catch onto right at first. There was anger, resentment, sorrow, and a guilt so deep it was suffocating; clinging to his being, but there were other things, too, good things. Stiles wasn’t ignorant, far from it, and he had never forgotten that Derek had had a family once. A real one. A mother and a father, brothers, sisters, cousins- more than a torn apart body and a psychotic uncle with blood on his hands.

He had grown up in an actual house, slept on a bed and gone to the same school that Stiles and Scott went to now. He had probably been around the middle, sibling wise, and Stiles had seen enough of his peer’s families to know that they probably annoyed the shit out of him.

Stiles knew there had been humans in his family, and that he had loved them. Loved them all so deeply that the wound was still fresh a decade later.  

Even the way he spoke was a contradiction- you’d suspect that coming from gruff, moody werewolf with bulging muscles and a looming stature, he’d have a voice to match. He didn’t though, it was almost soft, smooth and light in a way that wasn’t quite childish, but was much more gentle than his expression and words conveyed.

It made Stiles ache, thinking of it on a boy, younger than even him, who hadn’t lost everything and everyone he cared about in the span of a moment.

A beautiful girl who used her looks and her words to hide her brain, and had what everyone else thought they wanted, when all she wanted was what everyone else had that she didn’t, a family, curfews, chores- love.

A werewolf who threatened and clawed his way into a position of power he was never meant to have, and a man who couldn’t change the past no matter how hard he tried to fix the future, one in the same.

Yeah, Stiles liked the complex ones.

Although he sure hadn’t liked Derek in the beginning, not with all the wall slamming, friend tossing power trips that he had introduced himself with.

But he had tried to protect Stiles when he could, and he had never deliberately hurt him, the incident with his steering wheel aside. Honestly Stiles and Scott had done worse to each other, and it’s not like he hadn’t hit Derek a time or two, if only to wake him up.

Most importantly it was before this weird truce- turned odd companionship between the two of them had started up.  

It came about when Derek began to show up his room, unannounced and demanding as always, but instead of vaulting out the window after giving his orders, he would sit down on Stiles’ chair, and later on his bed as he paged through the books Stiles had stacked high on his shelf.

Then his orders became less of a command, and more of a request, and Stiles would start to fill the silence by talking about the research, the gossip around the school, the latest guild war that he’d won, and eventually, about himself.

It still took months for Derek to actually begin to reciprocate in kind, and he was still mostly a mystery, but a much more welcoming one.

The not-mentioning the sudden arousal whenever he appeared around Stiles shirtless, or in close proximity to him, wasn’t exactly out of the box. Derek mocked with the best of them in his own way, with silence and baffling stares and judgmentally hot caterpillar eyebrows, but never about anything important. Not ever with something that would actually cut.

That was how Stiles knew that Derek had probably figured out that it wasn’t just lust, and had morphed into something a little more significant than a crush.

If nothing else, Stiles was used to waiting, and Derek had never actively discouraged that aspect of their _thing_ , whatever it was. Which he took as a go-ahead to openly ogle and sometimes fumble about the werewolf when he happened to be having a particularly hot day.

Which, oh yeah, was _every day._ Fuck his life.

Fuck it sideways, because now Stiles was doing nothing more than taking advantage of the fact that he finally had his hands on Derek, and that he wasn’t complaining or trying to shy away. In fact, he seemed to be relaxing back into Stiles’ hand, head tilted slightly forward in a way that was _huge_ , because subconsciously or not, he was baring his neck to Stiles.

Clearing his throat, he tried not to jump away, pushing back and awkwardly crossing his legs to try and hide how hard he was.

Think about something else, anything else. Not the gorgeous, broody werewolf sitting half naked less than two feet away.

 _Feet_ , bird feet, cat feet, paws, fur- fur, wolf, werewolf, Derek _fucking_ Hale, fucking Stiles? Oh god.

He shot off the bed, going over to his laptop and fiddling with the power cord, forcing himself to look away as Derek slowly stretched, not at all bothered by Stiles’ spastic outburst, reaching down to drag his shirt on and slipping his arms into the sleeves of his jacket.

His voice totally didn’t crack when he said, “I’m- uh, done now, completely done. We’re good, you’re good, I’m good, I got your back my wolfy friend. Literally! Hah.” Definitely not awkward.

Derek just smirked at him, his mantle of power safely settled back onto his shoulders as he walked towards the open window, somehow gracefully crouching up onto the sill.

Did Stiles cause that tenting in his jeans? Did Derek actually enjoy that? Holy shit, was Stiles looking at another dude’s erection that _he had caused._ Oh shit, look at his face Stiles, eyes _away from the crotch_. He wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all Derek, judging by the slightly maniacal grin on his face.

“I’ll be seeing you, Stiles.”

Right. _Awesome._  

They were _so_ going to talk about this later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, warding, magic, feelings, and man pain. ALL THE MAN PAIN. Derek is a tease, and way more impressed with Stiles than he lets on. Also maybe plot? I really have no idea if this has a plot yet, but it probably will at some point.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-betaed, as always, and I'm not exactly _happy_ with it, but I would hate to leave you guys hanging for too long.

Stiles had always been told that he had a morbid sense of humor, a morbid sense of being really. There had always been a part of him, a pretty large part that he didn't try all that hard to hide, that delighted in things most people would run away from. The night that Scott was bitten was so far from the first time Stiles had dragged him to a crime scene that it wasn't even in the same arena. He and Scott had been bros for forever, a long ass time by High School standards, and Stiles had never held the same interests as most kids his age, or kids of any age. Before she got sick, his mom would take him on long walks through the cemetery, pausing at each gravestone and asking him how long they'd been alive, the genesis of their name, if they had money or barely enough to afford the grave.

 

She told him that no matter what the answer to any of those things was, the bodies laying underneath them were loved, once. Maybe not by many, and maybe not for long- but they made an impact on someone.

 

She taught Stiles to respect death, but she also taught him to value it.

 

It was almost a sense memory, the soft scent of Rosemary, the warmth of her hand enveloping his- the vague blur of her features that stared at him kindly as she crouched in front of him beside the big willow tree that rested near the edge of the field of the dead.

 

"We're all energy baby. We're all just passing through- you can feel it, can't you? It's in the air, they give it to us- most people don't ever learn how to appreciate it, but we Stilinski's are different aren't we?"

 

Stiles had smiled up at her, gap-toothed and understanding in a way only a child could be, nodding his head in affirmation. They were special- just him and his mom, something not even his dad was a part of. Just for them.

 

He had been naive- he hadn't even known how aware he was of the energy drifting through his body and across his skin until he could feel it being drained slowly and painfully out of his mother, until she had held his hand in a weak grip and told him to take it, the last bit of her that she could ever give. Take her wisdom, her bloodline, but most of all, her love.

 

And she had died that day, and Stiles felt it to his core, and he never forgot it. 

 

It was a gift.

 

So when she passed, he didn't stop going to the graveyard, although his dad seemed to expect him to, because all that death didn't make him sad; it served as a reminder of her. And eventually, he learned that among all the other small, petty crimes his dad dealt with as Sheriff, he also had a habit of knowing just where the latest murder had happened.

 

Stiles had learned the codes, figured out the police frequencies, discovered how not to get seen.

 

Scott, being his best friend, had pretty much started coming along from the get go, when he caught Stiles trying to sneak out the window five minutes after his dad had left for a murder-suicide that had occurred near the local university. All of ten years old, he'd rubbed his blurry eyes with one hand as he reached out another to grasp at Stiles' pant leg and tug at him.

 

"Where're you going Stiles?"

 

Stiles had sighed, and then tugged Scott up, shoving shoes and coat at him. "C'mon Scott, c'mon! We gotta get there before too many people show up and we'll be slow on our bikes."

 

"Get where?"

 

His grin couldn't have been that manic, could it? Scott still backed up though, frown deepening.

 

"The scene of the crime, my friend!"

 

"Ar- are there going to be," the last word was barely whispered, "bodies?"

 

Stiles had smiled, wide, and in a way he never did at school, not since his mom.

 

"Yeah, yeah there are."

 

Scott, bless him, had just shrugged, pulled on his coat and said.

 

"'Kay, but we better not get caught because I hate being grounded, and I can't miss Power Rangers Stiles."

 

Stiles didn't think Scott had ever quite got what he meant when he had slung his arm around his shoulders, tugging him faster to the door as he spoke.

 

"I'll show you something better than Power Rangers- I'll show you _spirits_."

 

Most people didn't seem to realize that you left something behind.

 

The old Hale house? Its something was pain, torment to be exact, and the heaping of guilt that was seeded into the ground around it, watered and nurtured by one Derek Hale, the ever-suffering son. It should probably bother Stiles more than it did, but even pain was just a part of life, something you had to accept.

 

That didn't mean Stiles wouldn't try to change it though, it wasn't in his nature.

 

Energy could be channeled into different paths, the earth evolved and was reborn, and well, Derek, Stiles had his own way of taking care of him, soothing the pain little by little in what ways he could. He liked Derek, liked him a lot more than he probably should, given the whole dangerous Alpha crap he had going on, but even if Stiles wanted more, he wasn't going to stop being his sort-of-friend, or whatever it was they were.

 

Class had been a nightmare, Scott asking why he kept zoning out, why he smelled like lightning, why he had stayed an extra two hours at the clinic last night instead of driving Scott home- like the dude couldn't run like a freaking greyhound.

 

This shit was important, because it wasn't just about Derek, it wasn't just about his pack, it was about Stiles' father, and Danny, and that one chick in English who always handing him his pens when they twitched out of his hands. It was about the whole goddamn town. Whether or not anyone knew it, Derek and his little band of furry brethren were basically all that stood between them and all the supernaturals that could come and tear them to pieces.

 

The Argent's would probably argue that they did most of the work, but Stiles had learned that as a human, there was only a certain amount you could attune yourself to. A lot of things slipped through the cracks, most innocuous, but some posed a hell of a lot more of a threat than a rogue werewolf.

 

So while the pack of Beacon Hills kept the town safe, Stiles would do his best to keep the pack safe, even if it kept him up at night.

 

He begged off hanging out at Scott's place for a good old fashioned zombie-slayage fest, much as it pained him, and booked it to the Hale house, determined to get everything done before nightfall- it wouldn't make it _difficult_ exactly, but his dad had been getting more and more worried as Stiles pulled away, bit by bit.

 

It was hard. Man, was it fucking hard. His dad was all he had left, really, the only concrete thing anyways- but as much as Stiles loved him, he _couldn't_ pull him into this- this _war_ they had going on. He already dealt with enough danger as Sheriff, and maybe Stiles had taken on the role of 'protector' of the tribe way too seriously, but he'd be damned if he let his dad get hurt.

 

Stiles could still come home early and make them dinner most nights, though, and at least he wasn't getting caught in the middle of crime scenes as often, since most of the time instead of being back-up who wasn't in the know, he was right there in the thick of it.

 

Tapping out the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat onto the steering wheel of his Jeep, he swung into the dirt driveway, letting the wheels slide a bit out of control and relishing the pull of the soil as he used it to stabalize the car and gentle it to a stop.

 

Stiles had learned that, as in most things in his life, he had a bit more energy than was usual, and Deaton had said it would be helpful to release a bit of it along the way. As a bonus it made Derek look at him like he was a dumbass as he glared all glaringly from the porch, watching balefully as Stiles opened the door and swung out of his seat, pushing it closed and throwing his hands in the air.

 

"Look Ma'! No hands!"

 

If he wasn't mistaken that was definitely a snort, and maybe a quarter of a smile before Derek scowled again. He liked to challenge Stiles, and Stiles wouldn't be complaining- it made the actual real boy emotions he got Derek to show all the more worth it.

 

Derek could fake with the best of them, all charming grins and open laughs, but when he got comfortable and acted, well, normal, for him anyways, he was actually a pretty chill dude.

 

Stiles took a deep breath, feeling the wind pick up an almost impercetible amount. Despite the grief the area carried, it was actually pretty nice being out here. Not that the town was a concrete jungle or anything, but being just a bit more away from civilization than usual did wonder on the senses.

 

He hadn't realized he was staring absent mindedly into the forest until a warm hand rested on his shoulder, startling him. He flinched, then realizing Derek was tensing and starting to pull his hand away, leaned forward into the grasp, grinning.

 

"Ready to start some warding, my furry friend?"

 

Derek raised a nicely bushed brow, skeptically amused, he couldn't even deny how wolfish he looked even when he wasn't changed at all.

 

"You need my help?"

 

Stiles scoffed, "Not in this arena- this is my game, my sport, my _calling_. I just need you to lend a bit of yourself is all."

 

So maybe he was being deliberately vague- confused was a cute look on the guy, okay?

 

Only Derek wasn't an enabler, the bastard, so he simply stared at Stiles, thumb resting against the tendons on the side of his neck as he refused to take the bait. Stiles was patient where it counted, but _c'mon_. 

 

"Fine! I just need to shift a bit of your consciousness into the wording and _don't look at me like that, jeez_ , it's not like I'm stealing it! More like, borrowing? Copying!"

 

Oh man, that was _definite_ confusion right there, and just a hint of annoyance- perfection.

 

"You need to _copy my consciousness_."

 

Stiles grinned.

 

"Just a little bit of it."

 

And Derek, bless the man and all his mysterious ways, just shrugged, sliding his hand up so it cupped the back of Stiles' neck for a moment before he let go and stepped back.

 

"Okay."

 

Alright then. Stiles rubbed his hands together, glancing around the house for a minute before he grabbed Derek's arm and started tugging him towards the wood line.

 

"We need to start over here, the edges."

 

He stopped just as they were breaching the trees and pulled Derek next to him, man-handling him until he was just in front of Stiles, facing away from the house. Slowing his breathing until it matched the pulse of the earth, he brought his left hand slowly to rest against Derek's back, covering where his tattoo would be.

 

With his other hand, he reached out and set it lightly against a nearby tree- just enough to feel the bite of the bark pressing against his skin, energy flowing through him.

 

Keeping his voice soft and his mind focused, he spoke to Derek. He had debated all week whether or not he should prepare him for what he had to do, but then after checking in with Deaton and cross-referencing some sources, he'd figured that it was better that what Derek thought and felt, no matter what it was going to be, should be fresh on his mind, not something he tried to get right and analyzed to death.

 

"I want you to close your eyes, think of your tattoo. Think of what it means, Alpha. Beta. Omega. Family, the rise and the fall. I want you to think of the pack, everyone you consider pack, anyone you want to protect. Don't force it- just remember the feeling- they're surrounding you, the itch underneath your skin when you think of them. You can feel the connection pulling at you. Think of this land, growing up here, the smell of the dirt that you played in, the trees, the foundation your house was built on.

 

Picture it, the smell, and the touch of it. You're standing in the house- it's whole, and everyone you're trying to keep safe, they're right in front of you, they're happy- you can sense as far as the end of the forest surrounding the house, and there's no danger."

 

Stiles had let his voice grow increasingly quiet until it dropped off completely. He had closed his eyes as soon as he told Derek to do so, and he'd been clearing his mind even as he told Derek to fill his.

 

This was the tricky part, concentrating on what he needed to pull from Derek and channel into the protection spell, but Stiles thought he finally had the right mix of emotions. He could feel everything more clearly when he was touching someone, and by putting the thought of Derek's tattoo in his mind first, everything else had been based off of the image. With the physical representation under his palm, it was almost as if he was feeling it himself and _there_. _Now._

 

He began to chant, almost silently, the vibration of his voice traveling down his arms, down his legs and into the ground.

 

_Protect this land. Protect these people._

 

He fed Derek's comfort and belief into the earth and the air and strengthened them until it was saturated. Until some of the pain was pushed away and new stocks of hope pushed through the ground, saplings next to an oak, but present all the same.

 

He integrated a mix of his and Derek's wants until the power was settled and strong, until ill-will shrank back from the area that ebbed and flowed with possessiveness and protection. With the raw, freshly scrapped love that Derek held for the place where his family had flourished and died, and the fierceness of the need to stop it from happening again, coupled with Stiles' growing power lending the tool driven by Derek's intent.

 

It was done. Or at least- Stiles hoped. He was pretty new to actually _applying_ what he had learned, but he knew that _something_ had changed. The place felt different.

 

Kinder.

 

He abruptly realized that his hands had moved, both of them coming up to hold onto Derek's shoulders, a slight tremor running through them.

 

Stiles cleared his throat, felt the leaves above them shifting in his discomfort as he took a small step forward, keeping his voice library-quiet.

 

"You okay?"

 

Instead of pulling away like he expected, Derek took a step back that brought him firmly against Stiles, until the arms that had been held away from him were suddenly dangling over his sides.

 

Taking his queues from the tense lean of Derek's body that was subtly leaning towards him, like a plant to the sun, he wrapped his arms around the other man, noticing how they were basically the same size as he hooked his chin over his shoulder, managing to rest his hands against Derek's ribs, the bones pushing against his palms, softened by muscle and the worn fabric of his shirt. Derek always seemed much larger than he actually was.

 

He didn't answer the question though, but Stiles thought he might understand.

 

He could remember what it felt like when his dad had packed up most of his mom's stuff and placed it almost reverently in the downstairs closet- not forgetting what had happened, but actually making an attempt to move on from it, the first real step he had ever taken.

 

This was probably the first time in six odd years that Derek had let himself take that step.

 

Stiles mused, as Derek rested his hands over his own and shuddered in his hold, breathing staccato but deep, that maybe he hadn't known how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Pack times! And other things. A lot more dialogue; probably.


End file.
